


Burn the House Down

by Jocelyn, Raine_Wynd



Series: Author's Favorites [22]
Category: Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Chuck Lives, Father-Son Relationship, Gen, Hansen Family Feels, Herc is a badass, Inspired By Tumblr, Kaiju cultists, Kidnapping, Post-Operation Pitfall
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-27
Updated: 2015-03-28
Packaged: 2018-03-19 20:09:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3622638
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jocelyn/pseuds/Jocelyn, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Raine_Wynd/pseuds/Raine_Wynd
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nobody takes Herc's son away from him. Nobody.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Gratitude is given to sydneyshatterdome on Tumblr, whose idea this was:  
> "So Chuck is kidnapped by somebody (does it really matter who?) and then, like, Herc FREAKS out because that’s his son they’ve got there, that’s his son, and he goes all Liam Neeson on them and saves Chuck and nobody is wearing a shirt for reasons."
> 
> With the encouragement and additional brainstorming courtesy of kaijusizefeels, libertyflight, and 3fluffies (Jocelyn).

It happened on a Tuesday night because that’s how things went in Herc’s life. Nothing good ever came out of a Tuesday, as far as Herc was concerned. The kids were just out shopping, for God’s sake. He knows they’re all over the age of twenty-one, but he remembered when Mako didn’t speak English; Chuck was monosyllabic, and Raleigh was just barely old enough to meet the PPDC’s minimum age requirement. As long as he’s still older than him, they’re kids. Stacker had come to Herc asking for parenting advice often enough, Herc sometimes felt he had raised Mako long-distance. Raleigh…well, Raleigh had looked up to him like he was some goddamned hero, respected him, damn it. Chuck had quit doing that long before Scissure (Scott’s fault, but so was a lot of things.)

This Tuesday night, Herc was beyond not happy. Both Raleigh and Mako had managed to escape the infuriated group of kaiju cultists who had attacked them in the market, though not without severe injury. However, Chuck had not managed to escape. Herc couldn’t fault Raleigh much, either. It had been his idea to go shopping that day - a chance to escape the ‘dome and buy a gift for his sister, who was coming to visit from Alaska the next day. Raleigh looked like he had fought hard and dirty. According to Mako and the police report, Raleigh had taken out several of their attackers. He had almost managed to free Chuck, only to be knocked unconscious when some passersby had finally noticed the battle. As if that wasn’t bad enough, he had been cut with a poison-tipped blade. Thankfully, it wasn’t kaiju blood, but snake venom; he now lay in the hospital, fighting for his life, but the doctors had been able to administer the right anti-venom in time. Mako herself bore the bruises of having had to fight hand-to-hand. A cut now marred her left cheek. She was the picture of contrite mixed with anger and a thirst for vengeance as she stood in Herc’s office, listening to the head of PPDC security give her and Herc the latest report.

“So the police say they are looking for suspects,” the head of the PPDC security said. A former member of National Gendarmerie Intervention Group, Emmanuel Lazare was a man of above-average height and the sleek musculature of a triathlete. He spoke English with a faint French accent and had been with the PPDC since its beginning. Now his bland features were twisted in a sarcastic grimace. “My contacts say that there’s a strong possibility that someone is being paid to look the other way.”

“Mako,” Herc began, “is there anything else you’d like to add to your account? Anything you think will be helpful?”

Mako shook her head. “No, but if you go after him –”

Herc cut her off with a look. “I will need you to stay here. Raleigh will need you when he wakes up.”

She looked as though she wanted to protest.

“I know you want to help, but you should be in Medical, too, resting,” Herc cut her off. “Right now, you’re living on painkillers.” He lifted his head, deliberately recalling how Stacker wielded his authority over Mako. “Go back and sleep, Mako. If your father were here, he’d say the same thing.”

She let out a sigh, clearly not happy. “Permission to be dismissed, sir?” she asked.

“Granted.” He returned her bow with a slight one of his own and waited until she’d exited the office before turning to Emmanuel. “So, how do we get my boy back?”

Emmanuel smiled; it was not a pleasant smile. Few in the PPDC knew that Herc had flown classified, Special Forces missions for the RAAF; Emmanuel was one of them simply because he’d participated in a joint mission. “Going to show them not to mess with a Hansen, sir?”

“ _Nobody_ takes my son away from me,” Herc growled.


	2. Chapter 2

Chuck cracked his eyes open to a pounding head, a throbbing, misshapen face, and semi-numb extremities, and took stock of his surroundings. Yep, his senses weren’t lying to him: he was indeed tied to a chair in a warehouse surrounded by gun-wielding thugs in masks and red and blue kaiju worshipper robes.

They knew he was awake. He hadn’t been with it enough to hide that he was coming around, so he didn’t bother with the charade. Now they were all watching for what he’d do, waiting to see what kind of fight he might have left in him after the pounding he’d been given.

They couldn’t possibly have expected his reaction: though it made his ribs hurt and his swollen lower lip split again, Chuck Hansen laughed.

The looks on their faces only made him want to laugh harder. He managed not to. No sense adding to his massive catalog of injuries when he’d need his wits about him…but he did want to.

_You lot actually think this is the first time I’ve been kidnapped?_

He managed to restrain himself from saying that. But he wanted to. Oh, he wanted to.

* * *

Hell, the first time… to call it “kidnapping” was a bit of a stretch. He’d been thirteen, given a rare opportunity to attend an off-base party in Sydney. Since the narrative laws of teen comedy were at work, the party had naturally gotten out of hand. Adult supervision had been nonexistent, and alcohol and drugs had spontaneously appeared. It wasn’t long before a half-dozen party crashers who were bigger and older than Chuck was had decided that holding him for ransom from his famous Ranger family was the perfect get-rich-quick scheme.

They hadn’t exactly been criminal masterminds, but they had slipped Chuck something in a drink. By the time he woke up a few miles away, they had already made their demand for ransom to the media.

Maybe it was their roofie, but Chuck had never wrapped his mind around the situation enough to be scared. He had just been confused as to what the hell was going on. Why was he tied up in a closet, and couldn’t he at least go to the bloody bathroom?

They’d let him out long enough for that – and just long enough to see that half his captors were practically shitting themselves in terror. There was a girl among them. She was curled up in a corner, crying, with a couple of boys who looked close to doing the same. Two more boys were strutting around crowing and mocking their cohorts for not having enough balls, and the remaining three boys were looking highly uncertain about the whole situation. Chuck felt like the calmest out of the whole lot.

He had no idea how long it had been. They’d given him a sandwich and a bag of pretzels and a bottle of water. He was still puzzling over this bizarre situation when all hell broke loose.

The punks threw themselves to the floor en masse when the doors and windows exploded in with a massive boom worthy of an action movie. Chuck was still reeling from the flash-bangs and smoke that filled the place when he heard familiar voices.

“Chuck?! CHUCK!”

 _Dad and Uncle Scott_ , Chuck thought, recognizing them instantly as they yelled in chorus.

“Where the fuck is my son? What the fuck have you done to him?” Dad was bloody roaring. Chuck had never heard him sound like that before.

“Hold it! Hold your fire…yeah, I bloody thought so. Kids. Stupid, brainless shits. You’re lucky we didn’t pump you full of holes,” said someone else.

Scott sounded almost as ferocious as Chuck’s dad. “We still might if you don’t tell us where my nephew is –”

Chuck found his voice through the shock. “Dad! Uncle Scott!”

“Chuck?!” Now his old man sounded almost as scared as he was angry. Chuck stumbled out of that closet only to collide with a rock-solid obstacle that smelled of smoke and sweat and Kevlar… but there were arms around him, clutching him so tight he was utterly unable to move. “Chuck…”

“I’m okay,” he gasped. His chest was being pressed tight.

“You hurt?” He spied Scott’s face over his dad’s shoulder, face lined with soot and sweat, eyes red and wide, searching him. Hands jostled him, tugging at him, pawing every part of Chuck that wasn’t wrapped in his dad’s arms, but his dad wouldn’t let him go. “Are you hurt? Did they hurt you? Herc, let go, let us get him to a doctor -“

“–I’m okay,” Chuck repeated. “I’m fine. Dad, let go; I’m all right.”

It was several more long moments, hearing his dad breathing in his ear, and everyone around him repeating the same questions over and over while voices roared scorn at the posse who’d started all this. Chuck got a hazy glimpse of them all seated against one wall in a line. All were sobbing with their hands on top of their heads; the ones who’d been swaggering the most earlier were now whining the loudest. Chuck felt himself grin.

Maybe that was what finally got his dad to let him go. At Scott's side, helping him pry Herc's arms open was Marshal Pentecost. Like the others, he was clad in bulletproof armor. He looked as inscrutable as ever, except that in the shifting lights of people and police moving about the room, Chuck could see a vein throbbing on his face. The intense way he looked at Chuck seemed to indicate he was holding back some suppressed emotion. Chuck couldn't quite work out what it was. He just recognized it because sometimes his dad had that same look on his face, usually when he was furious.

But what could piss off Marshal Pentecost that much? Scott always talked about how unflappable he was.

The British marshal suddenly blinked and broke off his stare at Chuck and joined Scott in coaxing Chuck’s dad to let him go. “Herc, let us see him.”

Gradually, Chuck’s dad relaxed his hold and let Chuck step back enough to look him over. “You hurt?” he breathed. His voice sounded ragged.

Chuck shook his head. “No. No, they didn’t hurt me.”

His dad released him with one hand so he could turn and let Scott and a medic look him over. Even when Scott wrapped his arms around Chuck, muttering, “Thank God,” Herc didn’t let go.

“I’m okay,” Chuck repeated. He hadn’t been scared… it hadn’t occurred to him to be afraid of these goons, but it was starting to dawn on him that his dad and uncle had been. He didn’t like that. More than anything else, the idea that the punks’ stupid scheme had left Herc and Scott shaken up made Chuck’s blood boil. Didn’t they know they had better things to worry about, like having kaiju to fight?

Chuck had become a mini-celebrity among the kids of family housing after that, for once, for a reason other than his dad and uncle’s job. It had been kind of cool at first, but eventually it got boring and annoying with everyone fussing over him, and he stopped talking about it.

He’d more or less stopped thinking about it until he drifted with his old man. It came back to him in a rush of Herc’s remembered distress that nearly dragged them both out of alignment.

_It was all my fault someone took my boy I want my son where is he where is he –_

Some bizarre combination of blinding rage and terror had driven Hercules Hansen, consuming him with a purpose more powerful than even what he brought against the kaiju: find Chuck. As long as he was capable of breathing and moving, Herc would find his boy.

* * *

They had never talked about the events of the first kidnapping after Drifting together; it had been too awkward. But Chuck knew it along with all the other words his old man was never able to say out loud. So even now, pounded within an inch of his life, his breath compressed by cracked ribs and his face a bloody mess, knowing that this batch of captors weren’t just a bunch of stupid punks…he held onto what he knew, down to the marrow of his bones.

 _Dad was coming_. As long as Hercules Hansen could move a muscle or draw a breath, he’d be coming.

Chuck thought about trying to fight his way out when the number of watchers thinned from time to time but couldn’t seem to pay attention long enough. _Concussion, probably_ , he mused as his thoughts drifted in and out of the present. He was also bound so tight that his fingers were tingling.

He was worried about Mako and Raleigh. He had heard Mako’s shout of anger but also pain and in those last seconds, Chuck suddenly hadn’t heard Raleigh anymore. That bothered him, and as soon as the old man got here, he’d find out what had happened.

But he wasn’t scared, not really. His dad would be here soon.


	3. Chapter 3

Herc chafed at the mere suggestion of a delay, but Emmanuel insisted he come up with a proper plan, not just charge blindly in like some damn tourist who hadn’t read the guidebook. He knew his security chief was right, but Herc hated this feeling of having half his heart cut out. Didn’t matter if it was irrational, either. Part of him was grateful that Scott wasn’t around to see him like this. Hell, Herc wasn’t sure if he was channeling his brother’s personality right now, all anxious and raring to go without a clue as to how to get it done right the first time. Ghost Drift wasn’t technically possible after so many years apart, but Herc knew he had his moments where he was reminded he’d spent the better part of the last decade in Drift with someone else. He wasn’t going to be surprised if he had managed to keep some of Scott’s personality, given how tumultuous their last Drift had been.

“We have to do this right, Herc,” Emmanuel reminded him now. “Else I’m going to have to go rescue you and Chuck, and _nobody_ will be happy if I do that, because I might not care what I might have to do to get to you two.” He met Herc’s eyes. “So let’s not go that route.”

Reminded again of the danger to himself and his son, Herc forced himself to focus. Though he was severely tempted, it would do no one any good to start burning every kaiju worship house down just to get his son back. He could see from the look on his security chief’s face that Emmanuel was willing to go that far but preferred not to; it was what made him such a good security officer. For a moment, Herc found himself asking what Stacker would do in this situation, and then shook himself. How could he have forgotten what Stacker did the last time Chuck got kidnapped? Maybe it was because he’d gotten so damn emotional that last time. It hadn’t helped that Scott’s emotions had caused a feedback loop due to the fact they had been in Drift only moments before the news. Herc had had to shut off that memory lest it throw off his ability to connect with his son. Just because he was angry and upset didn’t mean that he had to toss his ability to plan and strategize out the window.

 _You can be the marshal, Hercules,_ Stacker’s voice reminded him now.

 _Yeah, but do I want to?_ Herc shot back in that memory. _Why can’t you pick the Hong Kong deputy marshal or hell, Sydney’s?_

 _Because neither of them is or was a jaeger pilot, and they don’t have a child at stake in the outcome of this war,_ Stacker had replied calmly. _You’ll handle the suits and ties just fine, Herc; you did it before when they got up in your face about you stealing a helicopter to rescue Chuck._

Herc let out a deep breath and closed his eyes briefly, wishing – as he had for the last several weeks – that Stacker was still alive to be the man in charge instead of him. He missed that bastion of control and finely aimed rage. Just thinking of that, though, made Herc take strength from that memory.

Calmer now, Herc sent scouts out to survey possible locations and report. He then asked Dr. Gottleib to come up with a predictive model for the likeliest target. He also asked Dr. Geiszler to check with Hannibal Chau for where the kaiju cultists could be storing kaiju parts. Between all three sources, Herc was able to narrow the possibilities down to two locations: a warehouse near the Bone Slums and a satellite worship house near the wealthiest part of the city. Herc sent the scouts out again to confirm their target and get a more accurate layout of where things were.

“Sir, the satellite worship house is abandoned,” one of the scouts reported.

“The warehouse it is then,” Herc said. He turned to Emmanuel. “Now can I go get armed and get my son?”

Emmanuel smiled. “Yes. Make sure you’re wearing bulletproof armor.”

“Mother hen,” Herc griped.

Emmanuel’s smile widened. “Just making sure you don’t get hurt. You know how your son gets when you do. Acts like you’ve never broken a bone or gotten shot at before, and you know how miserable that makes the rest of us. Oh, and you might want to study the floor plan of that warehouse if you haven’t already.”

“Teach your grandmother to suck eggs,” Herc shot back, but he double-checked his phone to make sure it was loaded with the floor plan for reference, just in case.

Officially, the PPDC only had weapons to defend against the kaiju. The UN had learned a long time ago that an unarmed defender was a dead one, regardless of against whom or what they were defending. Therefore, Shatterdome’s armory was a very well stocked one. Now accompanied by a PPDC strike force, Herc chose his weapons wisely, aware that the PPDC was only authorized to use lethal force under very specific conditions. Non-lethal weapons were, consequently, primary: gas grenades, rubber bullets, Tasers, and chemical sprays. Herc wasn’t taking any chances, though, and added a powerful handgun to his arsenal.

The strike force was comprised of two teams of five people each since the warehouse sat on a property with other warehouses. Herc’s team would take the lead into the warehouse proper while the other team would secure the grounds. Officially, the force was conducting a search for jaeger and kaiju parts, which were still illegal for anyone not the PPDC to own. This official reason allowed the Hong Kong police the luxury of standing aside while the PPDC did their work for them.

By the time they reached the warehouse, Herc was raring to kick some ass. It was now a day after Chuck had been taken, and Herc knew a lot could happen in that time. He studied the layout of the warehouse one more time, seeing that it was divided into four sections: the loading dock, the holding tanks and freezers, and the lobby area. The lobby was primarily a secure employee entrance area, but it did have a reception/security desk. According to the scouts and Chau’s intel, the signage on the warehouse door proclaimed it was the holding facility for the Hong Kong equivalent of Generic Company, Ltd.

They managed to sneak onto the property without a hitch. The warehouse door yielded readily, once C-4 was applied to break open the lock. The team managed to get five feet inside the warehouse and take out the first two sentries before the third one yelled out a warning. Reinforcements swarmed in, so Herc pulled out his riot gun and started firing rubber bullets. Through the ghost Drift, Herc could feel his son was somewhere here and knew he had to get to him soon.

Needing to clear the room quickly, Herc quickly donned his gas mask and gave the order for his men to do the same. He tossed a specialized smoke-and-gas grenade; the gas was a sleeping gas but smelled like rotting sewage, so anyone resistant to sleeping gas wound up vomiting instead. Enemy bodies fell quickly under the assault. Herc waited a ten-second count before leading the charge forward into the warehouse. He could feel his adrenaline surging and fought to keep himself under control; Chuck would not appreciate him fawning all over him like he and Scott had done the first time Chuck had been kidnaped.

Still, a part of Herc cried out: _they got my son. Where is my son? I need to get to my son now._

Herc and his team cleared the lobby. A tug on the ghost Drift Herc shared with Chuck made him veer towards the farthest office. He could feel how close he was to his son; felt an echo of the pain Chuck was feeling and growled, making the assistant squad leader beside him jump in surprise. Herc glared at him when he started to speak before trying the door.

“Get that damned door open,” Herc ordered.

The assistant squad leader nodded meekly and set the C-4 charge to blow it open. It popped open with the barest whiff of an explosion; Herc barreled through the door. He punched the first cultist that dared to stand in his way, sending him to the floor. Ignoring the two others who came rushing to their fellow's aid, Herc trusted his teammates to handle them and headed unerringly to his boy, strapped in a chair in the middle of the room.

 _Bastards had broken Chuck’s jaw – how dare they?_ Fury rose within him the moment he saw how tightly Chuck was strapped into the seat, how purpled his bruises were, mingled with fierce pride that his son had fought back so hard. For a moment, the world narrowed to just this space, just this moment. Herc’s hands were unsteady as he went to reach for his boot knife so he could cut the ropes, and he forced himself to calm so he wouldn’t cut himself or Chuck.

Chuck didn’t stir as he cut the ropes. He wasn’t worried; the ghost Drift would wake Chuck soon enough, and it would be better if he didn’t move. Herc hoped Chuck wouldn’t try to talk; his jaw looked broken.

“Warehouse is secure, sir,” the assistant squad leader reported.

Herc growled instinctively at the interruption, but as the words processed his brain, he belatedly nodded acknowledgment.

“I’ve called the medics,” the assistant squad leader continued nervously. “They’ll be here in two minutes. I, uh, I’ll escort them in, sir.” Taking Herc’s silence for assent, the man left.

Finally, the ropes were on the floor, and Herc faced his son. Roused by the tug on their ghost Drift, Chuck looked up and smiled painfully.

* * *

Vaguely familiar crashing and flash-bangs drew him out of a semi-conscious haze. Even though his swollen face hurt, he smiled to find Herc in front of him. “What took you so long, old man?”

“Oh, only a dozen fanatical cultists with doomsday wishes. Now stop talking before you break your jaw; Max misses you.” Of course, Herc scolded him for trying to talk with his jaw such a mess.

The medics kept reassuring him as they packed him in ice and laid him out on a stretcher. “You’re okay now, Chuck. Everything’s okay.”

 _Well, of course, it was_. Chuck had known his dad was coming. To hear these idiots talk, you’d think he had ever been in doubt of that.


	4. Chapter 4

As soon as Chuck woke, he got suspicious. He had a good sense of time, and it only took a few moments for him to work out that it had been awhile. His face wasn’t swollen anymore, and his thoughts were less foggy, which meant the concussion was healing. His breathing was a lot easier too, so his ribs had been taken care of.

His mouth was strapped shut, on the other hand, and he was bloody thirsty. As soon as he moved a muscle, Herc popped into his vision. “Hey, easy, Chuck. No moving. I’ll get you anything you need.”

His old man looked ragged. Chuck eyed him and tapped his wrist. _How long?_  

Herc got the message. “The attack was Tuesday evening, last week. We got to you Thursday morning. It’s Wednesday now.” Chuck’s breath caught, and his father cautiously patted his hand. “Take it easy. You had a major concussion and your jaw was almost out of alignment. No moving or talking for at least another day.”

_Raleigh and Mako! Where are they?!_ he thought and hoped his father could pick up on what he was thinking. Their ghost Drift tended towards emotions rather than words or concrete images, so he wasn’t surprised by his father’s attempt at reassurance.

“It’s okay, just take it – no, don’t even think about it, Becket, you’re not getting up!”

To Chuck’s embarrassment, the way his breath caught was dangerously close to a sob when Mako appeared at Herc’s shoulder, and he heard Raleigh’s voice. “Chuck?”

“He’s awake,” Mako confirmed, stepping closer to make eye contact with him. “Chuck, Raleigh is here. You’re both going to be all right.”

The breath Chuck hadn't realized he had been holding gushed out of him in a rush as he saw Mako and heard her words. Whatever the medics had doped him up with had to be the reason why Chuck’s eyes were suddenly watering all to hell. Damn it, he hadn’t reacted like this even when he had been tied to a chair with his whole body in agony and a bunch of gun-wielding kaiju cultists surrounding him. Now he couldn’t even turn his head or cover his face, and his dad had to wipe his face for him. He hadn’t expected to feel this way. Raleigh was the second toughest Ranger he knew; of course he had survived. Mako had come face to face with a kaiju and survived; a bunch of cultists was weak by comparison. Why would Chuck have expected any less of either Mako or Raleigh? Chuck told himself it just felt good to know that they were alive, but he knew he was still concerned. Why would his father sound so upset that Raleigh had tried to get up? And were they really safe here?

He wasn’t sure what it meant that Mako’s face was wet as she came closer, but she was smiling. “Just rest now. In a few more days, you will both be well enough to get up.”

Chuck pointed at her with his one free hand. He thought she looked okay – though someone was going to bleed for those stitches on her cheekbone and the colorful bruises on her face. If Raleigh couldn’t even get up... someone was _really_ going to pay for that. 

Herc knew what he was thinking, maybe without their old ghost Drift. “You can plot revenge later, kid. When you’re up and about, we’ll deal with the fuckers who did this. Till then, go back to sleep. I’m here. You’re okay now.”

_Good point_. His dad was here. Nothing else would happen to them. So he could go back to sleep. He felt, more than saw, Mako gently grip his forearm reassuringly as he closed his eyes.

“One of us will be here when you wake up,” she promised.


	5. Chapter 5

Herc and Mako flatly refused to leave Chuck and Raleigh alone even with security guards posted at the entrance to the shared room. The hospital staff offered a compromise: a cot positioned under the window. At night, either Herc or Mako occupied said bed.

Chuck wound up being able to talk before Raleigh was allowed to get up and walk. The sight of Raleigh almost put him on the floor with shock. The toughest Ranger Chuck knew, after his father, had taken a beating as severe as the one they had given Chuck. After surviving two solo Drifts and the Breach, the thugs’ poison had nearly killed him. He had lost over twenty pounds, and the medics still had him on oxygen and a slew of monitors to catch any change in his heart or lung function.

Raleigh was obnoxiously casual about it. “At least it wasn’t flesh-eating venom.” Well, Chuck could understand the blasé attitude to a point. According to everyone, Mako had kept herself under rigid control while Chuck was captive and Raleigh was near death.

Once Chuck was able to sit up and talk, Herc saw the breakdown coming before anyone else, and discreetly cleared the room. The three men sat there, Herc and Chuck in chairs on either side of Mako’s next to Raleigh’s bed, and let her get it out of her system.

“I shouldn’t have allowed them to take you,” she muttered, wiping her eyes. Chuck remembered nothing after the second blow to his head, but Mako and the eyewitnesses had filled him in. He certainly wasn’t about to fault anyone for how they had reacted: Mako had been on the verge of pursuing the cultists when Raleigh, already unconscious, started convulsing on the ground. In desperation, she’d had to let the assailants escape while she called for help. 

“It was the right choice,” Herc told her. “If you hadn’t got him to the hospital as fast as you did, he might not have survived. And it meant the bastards had only one hostage, so they had to keep Chuck safe. _Trust_ me,” he insisted, seeing Mako’s resistance. “You know if anyone were going to throw a fit about how someone handled Chuck’s safety, it’d be me.” Chuck groaned theatrically, but at least it got a grin back on Mako’s face. 

“I hate to sit and wait. All I could do was think.”

“I was fine,” said Chuck. “All I was even worried about was the two of you.”

Raleigh feigned skepticism. “Not even a _little_ concerned you were about to become a virgin sacrifice?”

Mako actually squealed and rocked back in her chair, dissolving into giggles. With Herc chortling on the other side of her, Chuck vowed, “You just wait until I get you in the kwoon again, Becket!”

They all laughed until a medic barged in and scolded them for putting pressure on Chuck’s jaw and Raleigh’s heart. The usual cocktail of meds put Raleigh to sleep in short order, and Chuck had to admit he was sore enough for a painkiller. Herc conceded the cot to Mako but sat in a chair at Chuck’s bedside a little longer.

For what he said before he too fell asleep, well... Chuck blamed the damn painkiller.

“You really weren’t scared?” his old man smirked as he asked, but there was a rough edge to his voice. Chuck knew that as much as he was casting it as a joke, he really wanted to know.

“‘course not. Knew you were coming, just like last time.”

“Last time was stupid kids, not an armed cult.”

“Doesn’t matter,” he murmured, inches from sleep. “You’d get me back, knew that... Was worried ‘bout them, not me. Knew you’d find me.”

The last thing he saw before surrendering to the drowsy haze was his dad’s smile. The last thing he heard was his dad’s voice. “Right about that, kid. I’m glad you knew.”

~The End~


End file.
